Tag: Outdoors

North of zero, as a relief

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

That’s Fahrenheit, or minus almost 18 Celsius. And that’s after the reading had gone much, much further south.

I know we’re not alone in the northern U.S. in a brutal cold wave, especially after an unusually warm spell, but what’s hit us has been brutal. The kind of snap that probably killed off my favorite beekeeper’s hives. Minus 17 and quite windy, for one thing. The temps dropped about ten degrees an hour before finally bottoming out overnight, where they lingered. After that, about noon today, reaching zero felt like a relief, especially since it appears no pipes froze. We’ll see. Two or three nights in a row might have been a different story.

Oh yes, our fuel oil tank was reading much lower than I would have liked, especially once we cranked the thermostat up just to keep up. The very walls were radiating cold, after all.

Unlike last year, neighboring towns were recording roughly the same temps rather than ten or more colder. The ocean around our island wasn’t providing any relief.

Worse yet, a man could go mad under the unending roar of the wind, especially when the condition of the roofing is in question. Men definitely did out on the prairie and likely Scandinavia, but here? You see asphalt roofing tiles all over town when you walk (not yet today) and wonder about how many have come from your house. And we’re grateful the gusts didn’t go over 25 or so, rather than the 50 we were bracing for.

The sea smoke this morning was incredible, but you’ll have to take my word for it.

No way was I going out to photograph it.

Scalloping in the dead of winter

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
There’s not a lot of meat in one of these, but what there is will be treasured by many seafood lovers.

This time of year, I hear the puttering motors in the chill air before the sun’s even up as the fishing boats head out to drag the depths for scallops. No matter how low the thermometer reading or how bad the weather, the vessels venture by, or attempt to, intent on catching their daily limit of ten or 15 gallons a day in a season that runs no more than 50 or 70 days but may close earlier, depending on the sustainable harvest in each of the regulated zones.

Rigged with a boom for the heavy chain net that drags the seafloor for scallops, this vessel returns to port with its harvest.

A day not out on the water of the bays around Eastport is a day’s income that’s lost for the season. The economics of fishing are precarious enough.

These intrepid fishermen shuck their catch onboard, tossing the shells overboard, which provides grounding for the breeding of more, and then return to port with their precious harvest, often well before noon.

A shell flies toward the water as these fishermen quickly shuck the precious bivalves onboard.

The licenses are coveted and even the size of crews is limited by state law.

Come summer, many of the boats, with their rigging reconfigured, and their crews will have turned their attention to lobster.

Other important harvests here are urchins and clams.

What workers impress you the most when they’re out in bad weather?

 

Bunchberry or, if you prefer, creeping dogwood, I still love seeing it

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

We’ve become fond of this groundcover along many of our trails, with its white blossoms in the spring and red berries well into summer. Here the foliage is fringed with red, set here against moss and a touch of snow in a stretch of what may be a peat bog.

Quoddy Head State Park, Maine

For the record, Cornus canadensis is also known as Canadian dwarf cornel, quatre-temps, even crackerberry,

Wonder how it would work in our home garden.

Bays within bays, all adding into one

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

For someone raised like me far from the ocean, trying to pin down places along the coastline can be confounding.

Eastport, for instance, lies within famed Fundy Bay yet also has Cobscook Bay lapping its west banks and Passamaquoddy Bay on its east.

What gives?

Well, let’s say the bays are like Matreshka Dolls, one fitting inside another one that fits within yet another one and so on.

Cobscook Bay, for instance, includes the smaller East, South, Sipp, Dennys, and Whiting bays.

Looking into Cobscook Bay to the west of Eastport.
Or to the east, toward the Bay of Fundy.

I guess it’s like a New Yorker saying she’s from Flatbush, meaning a part of Brooklyn within New York City, which does – contrary to the knowledge of many Manhattanites – sprawl far beyond their little island.

So Eastport can justly claim to be the City in the Bay. Or several.

 

How you locate where the international border runs between two islands

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
What’s with these pyramids? They’re even found in folks’ yards.

Pyramids like this sit in prominent spots along the shore. They can seem mystifying enough, even before you see a second one nearby.

At last, I learned the two can be lined up to create an imaginary line running out across the water. The border between the United States and Canada falls where the line crosses a similar line running from islands on the other side. That spot can then be connected to others, at least by some kind of maritime surveyors. It’s another example of connect-the-dots.

The four-sided pyramids are called range markers. They’re a special kind of daymark or day beacon, too.